Daily Archives: March 12, 2010

Americans love to eat. I love to eat, and chances are, so do you. We love food so much, in fact, that our collective waistline is expanding to near-catastrophic proportions. Regardless of your opinion of the mainstream press’ breathless reporting on the obesity “epidemic” plaguing this country, the simple fact of the matter is that Americans are increasingly overweight and/or obese to the point of illness. Fortunately, the power to change is within each of us; unfortunately, there are some who are more than willing to “help” us along, by force if necessary. Like tobacco a decade ago, we’re on the verge of a war on food.

WHAT first attracted me to the multi-millionaire, Franco-Swiss financier and philanthropist Arpad Busson? It wasn’t his acute financial acumen, the fantasy of a life with a raffish demi-aristocrat on the Cote d’Azur, nor even the size of his hedge fund, but something more rebellious – it was the lit fuse that dangled so insouciantly between his thin lips.

Tucked away along a waterway in Mastic, Long Island is Poospatuck, the smallest Indian reservation in New York State. It means “Where the water meets” and is home to 400 enrolled members of the Unkechaug tribe of Native Americans. It’s difficult to discern where exactly the reservation begins and ends. There are no visible signs to guide your way, no glow from a towering casino to mark the spot. Once you happen upon Poospatuck, however, there’s no mistaking you have arrived.

Tobacco Info

Tobacco is an annual or bi-annual growing 1-3 meters tall with large sticky leaves that contain nicotine. Native to the Americas, tobacco has a long history of use as a shamanic inebriant and stimulant. It is extremely popular and well-known for its addictive potential.

A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sumatra, Philippines, and the Eastern United States.

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it may be in the form of cigarettes smoking, snuffing, chewing, dipping tobacco, or snus.

Cigarettes are smoking products consumed by people and made out of cut tobacco leaves. Cigars are typically composed completely of whole-leaf tobacco. A cigarette has smaller size, composed of processed leaf, and white paper wrapping. The term cigarette refers to a tobacco cigarette too but it can apply to similar devices containing other herbs, such as cannabis.